


bury my heart next to yours

by softambrollins



Category: Professional Wrestling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angry Sex, Angst, Attempted Murder, Betrayal, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Codependency, Enemies to Lovers, Love/Hate, M/M, Post-Break Up, Stolen Moments, spans from January-August 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:01:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23995681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softambrollins/pseuds/softambrollins
Summary: Dean can't let Seth go, can't absolve him of his sins, any more than he can absolve himself.If Dean buries Seth somewhere deep below the earth, he knows that some part of himself would be going into the ground with him.
Relationships: Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley/Seth Rollins | Tyler Black
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	bury my heart next to yours

It's a cold, bitter winter that year and Dean wonders if it's all about to fall apart. He's been bracing for it. His bones ache like he's already an old man and a storm is coming. 

The ice finally shatters in March because something had to give eventually. He didn't think it would be Seth though. Seth's a strange one. Roman and Dean got on from the beginning, they were drinking and joking and laughing within a couple hours like they'd grown up together. But with that comes stupid fucking arguments and purposely getting under each other's skin out of bullheaded stubbornness. Butting heads just out of sheer pride and bravado. Typical brotherly fights. Roman grew up with so many older brothers and cousins and a family steeped in the strength and legacy of warriors that he had to be tough. Dean grew up on the streets, fighting for every single thing he ever got. He didn't ever have brothers or friends; everyone he met was just another person trying to take what was his. He and Roman are from opposite worlds but somehow, their nature is the same.

But Seth — Seth's different. Seth was always withdrawn in FCW. Dean thought he was just another soft, spoiled kid with a stick up his ass who'd never seen any hard days in his life. But he proved him wrong in the ring. He's a loner, but a different kind than Dean. He's always focused. On the next match and the next goal and the next step on the ladder. Seth's always up for a fight but he knows other ways to solve things when it's easier and it's infuriating and confusing and admirable in equal measure. He thinks so damn much that Dean's head hurts just to look at him sometimes. Like there's an interference of brain waves in the atmosphere. Signals crossing. Dean's spent more time with him than anyone in the last year and he feels like he's barely cracked him. But he and Seth never fight. Seth knows him, knows when he needs space to cool off and when to go after him. Seth wants this to work more than anyone. Sometimes he gets all weird and sentimental, just him and Dean, and it's not that it's not genuine but it feels like a calculated reveal of humanity. Like Seth giving him just enough for him to know that it means something to him too. Like he's asking him to try his hardest to not break it.

Breaking things is all he knows. Sometimes he wonders if Seth's smart enough to defuse the bomb always ticking down under his skin.

*

Roman tosses them both out of the Rumble in January when Dean tries to get there first and fails. Backstage afterwards, Seth just stares at him and he's not angry or frustrated or anything, he looks lost and soft and young and he says, too quietly, "Why'd you do that? You can't just throw this away, Dean." And then he walks off down the corridor and into the distance, head down, slowly sliding his gloves off, finger by finger. 

Seth and he don't even talk that much, and they never fight, but he's not used to so much damn _quiet_ between them. He fucking hates it and he kind of wants to run after him, recklessly and foolishly, and grab him and pull him close to his chest so Seth can feel his anxious breathing and tell him, _Stay. Just stay here with me._

But instead Dean just stares at his back as he goes and thinks, _Yeah, I could if I wanted. Everyone else threw me away first._

*

Dean gets lost somewhere in the hellscape of Bray Wyatt's twisted imagination and he comes crawling back hours later. And Seth's just standing there staring at him. And he doesn't say anything, his face stony and closed-off. But the silence invades his body and invades his dreams and messes his head up good, more than Bray Wyatt ever could. Because Seth's always _there_ , always supposed to be there, but now it's like he can't reach him anymore. Can't feel him. Like the wires have been cut, like the steady, familiar hum between them's been snuffed out.

He can't fucking _hear_ him. He can't hear him thinking too loud the way he always does. He wonders if Seth can hear him _feeling_ , still. If he can reach out and touch his hand to Dean's hair or his shoulder or his chest and ease the tension knotted up inside of him or if he's lost that particular power now.

*

Seth, Seth is not the one who walks away. Seth's the constant. The one goddamn thing fixed into the earth when everything else is spinning wildly around him. The one who drags him out of bars and back alleys and gutters and cleans his scraped hands and elbows and knees like a mother would and hauls his lifeless body into bed and lies next to him carefully watching him breathe all night. 

Dean's always had to take care of himself out there in the wild but then Seth was _there_ and he didn't need him, he never needed anyone, but he _wanted_ him. Seth could be fucking anywhere doing whatever he wanted but here he was with Dean. Like he meant something. Like they did together. Like this was more than just something to pass the time until something better came along. 

Seth didn't need him. Roman didn't need him. But God, he needed _them_. Wanted them. Down to the bottom of his soul. There wasn't a difference, really. There's only a difference for people who've always known how to love, who didn't just have to get by on scraps of affection and fleeting tenderness. 

Dean wants Seth. Dean needs Seth. The difference is only in the way the feeling settles in his stomach, either burning, gnawing at him or warming him from the inside. 

Seth's not the one who walks away. But he's walking away now though, he's walking away, from Dean and Dean's outstretched hand and the fucking need and anguish written all over his face and he just stands there and watches them lose like it physically fucking _hurts_ him too and that's Seth, through and through. He's not in control of his emotions like some people think. He just knows how much pain is bearable. He knows how to live with it. Knows how to exist in the fallout.

Dean has felt more pain than anyone can ever imagine in his life, he throws himself into it willingly, with his whole body, legs and arms and head first. He's always in pain, every single day of his life, and yet he never learnt how to carry it properly. It always just spills out of the cracks, infecting everyone else; it's like a snake winding up around his spine and choking the life out of him.

Afterwards, Dean thinks he'd tear the whole arena apart to find him, he'd tear the city apart piece by piece, he'd tear apart the whole damn world, rip the foundations of the earth up like rotting floorboards. Seth can't hide from him. And he remembers, oh, he _remembers_ , that Seth didn't come after him the week before.

*

When he finally turns up, to face him and Roman in the ring, he's clutching at his flimsy excuses and his self-righteous displays of logic, proud of his own manipulation, but he has to know they're not gonna protect him now.

Seth doesn't know one goddamn thing about _sacrifice_. 

Dean hits him almost just to see if he can fucking bleed. Because they never fight, they _never_ fight anymore, Seth is always so damn unshakeable, but he's angry now, he's _angry_ , and maybe this is what Dean wanted all along. Because Dean doesn't know what's inside Seth's chest. And he almost _needs_ to know. He wants to hurt him as much as it takes for Seth to never, ever walk away from him again.

Because Dean trusts him, has always trusted him, from day one. And he doesn't know why. It's like a disease, maddening and agonising. Seth shows so few of his cards and Dean wants them all and he wants none of them. He wants Seth to keep being Seth, untainted, incorruptible. _Better._ Maybe it's pathetic but some part of him thinks that if Seth wants him as he is, maybe there's hope for him after all.

Dean hits him because Seth hits him first. And there's something almost reassuring about that. Dean understands this. You don't fight with people you don't care about. But he wants to go beyond that. He wants to crack him open like an egg and see what falls out. See if his damage matches Dean's. Then they can go from there.

*

Afterwards in the locker room, he just grabs Seth by a fistful of hair and presses their foreheads together so hard it almost hurts.

"Don't fucking do that again," he growls out, harsh like a threat.

Seth nods, eyelids fluttering like he's in a trance. "I just want to keep us together," he says and it's desperate and pained like the words are clawing their way up from inside of him, like that need is making a ruin of his heart.

*

And then June rolls around and it feels like summer might actually be coming. They're on top of the world and he's climbed enough mountains to know that there's only one way to go now. 

But somehow he doesn't see it coming anyway. 

There's nothing like pain in his eyes this time, nothing like regret. And for the first time, Dean doesn't recognise him. Dean didn't know what was inside Seth, but he didn't think it was this. God, it can't be _this._

Because Seth’s the keystone that keeps all of this together, that keeps his body together when it feels like his bones are gonna shake apart. 

Without Seth, there's just silence and emptiness and no constant gravity tugging at his body, leading him where he needs to go. There's no more voices inside his head — Seth's the only one he ever needed — but his heart's overflowing with nothing to stop him from bleeding out.

He has to end the silence slowly settling over his bones like neglect and death. Rendering him useless and cold as ice.

*

Dean gets his hands on him for the first time and he gets away this once but he won't always. He's standing there looking at him like he's been rattled, like he's coming apart at the seams, and that's not anything like the Seth he knows. And Dean locks eyes with him and there's blood on Seth’s lips as he stands on the stage and Dean thinks, _Oh, he can. Oh, I did that._ And there's a rushing in his veins and it's the first time in two whole weeks that he feels truly _alive_. 

Dean finds him in the locker room after and he looks like he's about to run again, stark terror in his face, a deer in the fucking headlights, but Dean doesn't let him. He's still wearing his fucking Shield gear, like he has any right, and Dean wants to rip it off of him piece by piece, wants to strangle him with his own vest. He grabs him by his hair and Seth gasps like it hurts and then just because he can, and because he has to, because there's nothing left to lose anymore, he drags him in roughly and kisses him, biting and violent, crashing them together like thunder, tonguing at the blood on his lower lip like he's craving it. He shoves his hands up under his shirt and rakes his nails down his back until he can feel layers of skin peeling off. Dean's angry, it's thick in his blood like he's intoxicated by it. But Seth just tastes like fear and desperation and like something else underneath, sweeter and more innocent and maybe what he always thought Seth would taste like. He doesn't try to get away, he just lets him, lets him use him like he thinks he deserves it, like maybe this is what he wanted all along.

Dean pulls away but doesn't go far, hands still gripping at his face, at his throat, leaving bruises, so Seth will remember, he'll _always_ remember. He bites his throat and Seth almost whines and rolls his hips against Dean's. And then hastily, impatiently, he's grabbing one of Dean's hands in both of his and he's sliding it into his loose, tactical pants, under the thin barrier of his underwear and Seth's so hard and weak for him. Seth's just staring up at him, out of breath and pupils blown wide, like he's all he needs. And part of him wants to stop this now and leave him here, disappointed and unsatisfied, but Seth _wants_ him. Seth wants him and his brain is still fucked-up enough to eagerly respond to that. To give him what he wants like a trained puppy. 

He jerks him off quickly and messily and Seth's coming in his pants before he knows it and it's like he's too worked up to even really enjoy it but he doesn't care. Dean removes his hand and then Seth's getting down on his knees in front of him and unbuckling his belt, pulling his pants down, like he's just efficiently executing another plan, like he's _thought_ about it. And then he's sucking him off, his mouth greedy and hot and wet sliding over him, and Dean almost becomes unstuck in time, detached from the act, like he's watching it from somewhere above as it happens. He vaguely registers that Seth looks pretty with his dick in his mouth like that, swallowing him down so deep until he almost chokes on it, like he _belongs_ there, and maybe some sick part of him thinks this feels right. He doesn't know who has the upper hand now. Maybe it's just mutual self-punishment, a taste of what they know they can never have. Not for real. And Dean should hate Seth so fucking much, for this, for everything, but somehow he _knows_. He knows some part of Seth hurts just as sharply and excruciatingly even if he's learnt how to cover it up. He hurts too, but he still _did_ it, he still fucking left, he still stabbed cold metal shards through his spine and through his heart and thought that meant they were over and Dean can't ever forgive him.

Dean pulls out when he knows he's close and he strokes himself a few more times, feeling Seth's warm, sticky saliva on his fingers, and then he's coming right across Seth's face without warning. Seth blinks up at him, eyes wide and doe-like but not surprised at all, almost _accepting_ , slowly wiping come out of his beard with his hand, and it almost feels like it was supposed to be like this.

*

Seth holds onto that briefcase like it's his lifeline, the one thing he has left in the open ocean, and Dean just smiles and smiles, knowing it's gonna be the thing that drags him down in the end. 

*

In August, he gets ahold of him in the ring on his own for the first time. And some mad part of him just wants to grab him and kiss him in front of all these people just to see how he would respond.

But he doesn't. He just makes him look at him as he screams, _I loved you, Seth_ , right in his face. So he can't ever, _ever_ forget.

Like this is his one and last chance. Like he probably should have said weeks and months and years ago but couldn't. Because he couldn't ever take it back. But now it's all gone so it's almost safe. Dean only ever waits for shit to fall apart before he really lets himself _feel_ it and it's a curse and it's masochistic but maybe it's what's kept him alive all this time. 

It was only in the moment when he first swung the chair and it all went silent that he just looked at Seth and thought, _Oh, that's what it was. That's what you were, all along._

* 

In August is when Seth hits him over the head with the briefcase and it's got permanent marks on it now, from him, from them, maybe just like Seth does. He just falls into the cover on top of him and they're breathing as one and maybe that should be the end, maybe he should be granted some peace now, but that boiling in his gut isn't going to let up anytime soon, he knows. Not until Seth is — What? Gone, destroyed, a distant memory? Until the moment Dean looks him in the eyes and it finally dawns on him what he did? It's a hopeless dream, he knows, Seth's never going to be what he wants him to be again, but he can't let him go anyway. Letting him go means being left with nothing, means being consumed by the deep, dead silence closing in on the insides of his skull.

The night after is when Seth tries to take him out for good, tries to end him, so he's no more than a stain on the bottom of his boot, because he _knows_ , they both know that Dean is always gonna be there _looking_ at him and Seth can't live underneath his stare, the betrayal and the accusation and the whisper in his ear, the echo through his heart that _You can never run from this, I'll always be there, in your dreams and in your reflection and in every single piece of gold you ever get your dirty, filthy, blood-stained hands on. I'm always gonna be there, like a shadow over your soul that you can never wash clean._

Seth can live with a lot of things but not that, not Dean, not anymore.

*

He has no idea how long it's been or how he even got there. He just wakes up in a hospital bed and Seth's just sitting there staring at him, still as a corpse, barely blinking at all, and he knows it's not a dream because in his dreams, Seth's never looking at him. He always has his back turned, walking away.

He wants to reach out and grab him by the throat, wants to jump out of this bed and fling himself at him, drag him to the ground, so he can wipe that fucking calm, nonchalant look off his face — it's worse than if he was smug, if he had that smarmy, greasy smirk plastered on his face the way he does for the cameras — but his limbs are too heavy and tired and he can hardly lift them an inch off the mattress. Seth looks like he knows what he's thinking but he's not too worried. He can barely fucking talk, just mutters furiously and incoherently in his direction.

"Come on," he says eventually. "I'm taking you home." Seth's voice is hollow and far away like he's hearing him through thick, concrete walls but he sounds almost like he used to now.

Seth gets up and bodily pulls him up off the bed into a sitting position, one hand tight at his waist, wraps Dean's arm around his own shoulders so he can support his weight. He probably could refuse to go if he wanted, go heavy as a sandbag in his arms, but for some reason, he doesn't. Seth slowly guides him down the hallway and out into the parking lot and then hauls him into his rental car like it's old times except Dean wants to peel his face clean off his body, wants to feel his blood dry under his fingernails. He's too fucking weak to do anything though, his head is completely fucked-up and Seth knows it, and maybe that's why he's here. Maybe he came looking for him just to watch him die or he just came to see how pathetic he was, struggling to even form coherent thoughts or sentences. Or maybe he just knows he can _be_ here with Dean now when he's like this, concussed and basically comatose and falling from one nightmare into another and then into pure, neverending blackness, and he doesn't have to bear the weight of Dean's eyes on him.

Maybe that's why he did it in the first place.

*

Seth parks outside his house and somehow he has his keys, like he'd taken them off of him while he was unconscious and that makes him mad even when it's hard to feel anything at all. And he's getting out of the car and grabbing his bag in one hand and that stupid fucking briefcase in the other. And it looks like shit, battered and dented and scuffed to hell. That briefcase has seen some shit, he thinks. And it'll probably see a lot more. That's what he gave it all up for, a shiny lunchbox and a piece of paper, that's what he tore Dean's whole world down for. Dean wants to fucking destroy it like he wants to destroy Seth. But it feels like time and Seth himself might just do that for him. He's never been a patient man, though, and waiting around for Seth to realise he fucked up doesn't seem like an appealing prospect. 

And he's probably more than a little delirious now but when Seth comes around on his side of the car to help him out, he just looks up at him and shakes his head almost pityingly and says, the words slurred and raspy, "It's never gonna make you happy, man. No matter what you do."

*

Dean wakes up a day later on his couch and Seth's still just sitting there in silence, staring at him. Like he doesn't have anything fucking better to do. Like he's trying to prove something. And it was never like that before.

He sits up slowly and most of the pain is gone now, that sharp, searing feeling that shot up his spine and radiated through his brain, but he still feels unbalanced as he gets vertical, like his head is gonna roll right off his shoulders and onto the living room floor.

He takes his jaw and his head in both hands and cracks his neck hard, eyes squeezed shut at the pain but it's the good kind this time, the kind that he can control. He kneads his fingers into his shoulders and the back of his neck until it feels like his body can work again. Like it's his.

There's a bottle of painkillers and a glass of water on the table in front of him. He palms two and swallows them, washes them down, draining the glass, without thinking about it. He's never been thirstier in his life and when he finally looks at Seth, he just feels a deep burning in his stomach like he's been starving for days.

Miraculously there wasn't a fracture in his skull, just some substantial bruising, but looking at Seth now, it's like someone's hammering nails into his head. 

He doesn't say what he should, doesn't say, _What the fuck are you doing here_ , although it's ringing in the air between them. 

He just carefully puts the glass back down and closes his eyes, takes a breath and holds it for a second before he slowly releases it through his mouth. He opens them again and says, voice low and dragging out like a death knell, "I should dig a hole for you in the desert."

Seth doesn't respond, just more fucking silence, more than he can bear. He opens his mouth and then presses his lips back together. And Dean's _done_.

He gets up off the couch and stalks towards the door and he's instantly unsteady and dizzy and his head's still a fucking mess and he can barely see in front of him but anything's better than looking at Seth. He wrenches the front door open before he barges through it like he can't fucking breathe inside his house and then he slams it close behind him.

The sudden brightness is too much for his eyes, for his damaged head, but he just keeps moving forward because it feels like he might be eaten alive from the inside if he stays still one more moment.

He hears the door open again a few moments later and Seth's running after him, yelling, "What are you doing, Dean? Where the hell are you going? _Wait._ You're gonna fucking die out here." 

Like he fucking cares. Like he ever fucking cared.

Dean just keeps going, out of sheer will, even though just the empty space in front of him feels like a brick wall. Because his brain's broken and his heart's wrecked and his body's a demolished house with no light or air to be found anymore but that's not all he has. There has to be more. The only thing driving him now is what has always driven him: fight or perish.

And yeah, maybe he will, maybe the earth and the desert and the sun and the bleeding in his brain will finally stop that buzzing in his veins for good, and maybe it'll be so much better than all of _this_. All of this life he's led that's brought him here, to _Seth_ , to Seth making him a fucking home in his ribcage and then evicting him like a delinquent tenant. To Seth running and hiding and sneaking around and trying to split his head open like maybe that could make him forget. Make them both forget. But it never does. It's still right here. They could rip each other apart thread by thread until the end of time and they're never going to forget one single second of this. And maybe all of it feels like just what he deserves.

Seth's faster than him, though, and reaches him when he's only a couple yards down the pavement. He grabs him by the arm and twists him back towards him. Dean shakes him off violently and almost loses his balance and falls onto the hard concrete. He wants to laugh, he wants to laugh so bad, but it just tastes like blood and bile in his throat. It'll choke him if he tries.

He's doubled over now, hands clutching at his own chest, breathing hard, and he can see Seth's shadow on the dark grey ground but he doesn't move towards him again. Just stays perfectly still.

When he catches his breath, he forcefully straightens his back and pulls himself back up to his full height. Looks him right in his dark, dark eyes for the first time.

"Why did I fucking trust you? _Why?_ " he barks at him. Like Seth has the answer. Like Seth knows anything about what he thinks or feels or needs. Like Seth has a single fucking clue who Dean is and what he's _done_. To him, to the already tenuous scaffolding inside his chest. Dean was a ruin of a man long before Seth ever got here and all he did was set off more underground blasts until it all cratered in. A house of cards raining down around them. And Dean still doesn't know Seth's heart even when Seth's taken his apart so many times.

He doesn't know what would be worse: if Seth took care of him and protected him all this time and then realised it wasn't worth it or if it was just an act. 

Seth looks like he's seen a ghost, face pale and haunted, shakes his head. "You were tearing it apart, Dean. All of it. Even if you didn't know it. I couldn't wait around for it to happen," he says like the words are catching in his lungs, like he has to force them out. 

"You don't walk away, Seth," he says, voice rough and coarse as gravel. "I walk away. I fucking walk away. I destroy shit. You don't get to fucking — _I_ walk away."

Seth just stands there staring at the ground, at his own shadow, arms hanging limply at his side like he doesn't know what to do with them. Seth can't fix this by being here, by watching him sleep, by touching him, by doing anything and Dean can't fix this by screaming at him or hitting him, so it's like they're at an impasse. Hopeless. Nowhere to go from here. Maybe they should've figured this out a long time ago. They're no good for each other. They don't work. Maybe that's why they didn't fight for so long, because they knew they would've never been able to put the pieces back together. They know each other well enough to destroy each other but they don't understand each other well enough to make it right. They're perpendicular lines that only meet once and diverge infinitely. They're opposing signals. They only make static and chaos. Seth's someone else. Something else. Somewhere far, far away from him where he could never reach. And he's twisted up deep inside his chest too.

 _Need. Want. Need. Want._ It pulses inside of him like a second heartbeat. 

It's like there's sand in his throat, in his lungs, gritty and suffocating, and he can barely get any words out. 

"I feel like I'm _stuck_. Stuck in the fucking dirt. Stuck with you. And I can't move forward."

Seth just stares at him, not making a sound, but he has this helpless look in his eyes that almost says: _But do you really want to?_

There's something heavy in his gut. It's been there for months. Like an iron weight. And he can't get any of it out. He can scream and yell and he can break bottles and break bones and beat Seth’s face into a pulp, shred his knuckles on the edge of his jaw until their blood mix, and it's still just there, _there_ , like a fucking knot tangled in his belly dragging him down into the mud. 

Seth wasn't the cancer after all. It's _this_ , this feeling. This thing between them that just refuses to break no matter how much he hacks and bites and tears at it. It's like a fucking anchor on his soul, watching Seth walk away and walk away and always taking small fragments of Dean with him, like he's rubble caught on the bottom of his boot, no matter how much he wants to leave it all behind. Dean's going to cling to him forever, follow him around wherever he goes, and he will never be whole. 

Dean's the one who walks away. So he does. He picks his feet up off the ground the way he always does, even though they feel like lead, because of Seth's eyes on him, because of Seth almost cracking his head open weeks ago. He walks away.

But every time he did before, Seth followed him. 

He's not following now. 

Dean turns away from him and walks and walks, out of the city and into the wilderness, under the summer desert heat, baking everything in its path, walks towards the horizon. Walks until his legs ache and his lungs burn and he can't breathe or see anything in front of him. When he can't go anymore, he just collapses onto the ground, falls flat on his back, limbs sprawled lifelessly around him. 

The ground is hot and hard and dry and cracked and he's sure there's no way a shovel can even pierce it to dig a hole for a body out here but he kind of just wants it to open up and swallow him whole. 

His heart's a husk as dry and arid as the dusty ground. His blood's going slow and stagnant inside him. The thrumming and the want and the fight in his body is all going quiet and he can't hear Seth or anything anymore.

He stares up at the wide, wide sky, nothing disturbing it, no birds, no planes, just wisps of clouds floating here and there. The harsh, relentless sunlight beats down on his face and he doesn't close his eyes, just stares straight up at it until his vision goes hazy and then turns to nothing but bright, bright white.

He doesn't pass out like he thought he would. His lips are as dry and cracked as the floor he's lying on and his lungs are heavy in his chest like boulders and his head feels like it's already been split open, ripe under the desert sun, being picked apart by the sharp knives of vultures' beaks.

But he's still alive, his eyes are open, his heart's still beating. 

There are no rain clouds in the sky, no threat of storms looming on the horizon, but it feels like he's been struck by lightning. A punch of adrenaline straight to his heart. All at once.

He's come back from the dead before, but it's different now. Seth wanted to brush him away like dusting off a shinier life but he's still here. Seth's here, somehow. Seth doesn't want to fucking look at him anymore but he came after him. He's reminded that interference is what creates electricity. What makes life grow again. Even in the most barren, empty places. All you need is a spark.

He pulls himself up off the ground, gets on his hands and knees, skin blistering in the heat.

He buries his fingers into the dirt and hauls himself back up to his feet, an inch at a time.

He turns around, feels the wind whipping sand at his back, against his face.

He brushes it off.

He takes a breath and resets his heart.

*

When he gets back, it's dark and Seth's sitting on the sidewalk right where he left him.

He doesn't even look surprised, like he expected him to come back just then.

Dean lowers himself to the ground next to him with a grunt of relief, fingers sinking into the dusty knees of his jeans. He doesn't even feel tired anymore, like it's all gone mute, like he's emptier but looser at the same time. The cooler air gets inside his bones and soothes him, at least for a moment.

Seth turns his head to look at him, Dean can feel the weight of it even though it's dark and they're far away from any lights. He just slightly leans his head back in his direction, like a weak magnetic pull.

Seth reaches out, slowly, tentatively, finally, and touches his palm to his chest through his thin t-shirt, gently curls his fingers into his skin. He sighs audibly like it's the first breath he's taken since he's seen Dean, since he came here, since he left him in a disaster of his own making, breathing in nothing but smoke and ash. 

Seth touches him and he feels parts of himself disintegrate, feels his ribs turn to dust. 

This is what Dean knows: violence. Love isn't love unless it hurts. And loving Seth is like a constant avalanche in his chest, everything caving in. 

"It's fucking _exhausting_ ," Seth breathes out heavily. "I just wanted it to stop."

"What?" he asks, the word falling from his lips like a rock.

"You. _This_ ," he says, voice trembling. 

"You can't. You can't just cut out your fucking heart because it's _inconvenient_ , Seth," he says, through gritted teeth. "Believe me, I've _tried_."

Seth just shrugs like something's threatening to collapse his frame into himself, looking so, so small. "Well, what's the point? Neither of us wants this. We don't owe each other anything."

Dean has to laugh at that, and the sound is like an ugly cracking in his chest. "That's your problem, Seth. You think this is about _wanting_. This has never been about _wanting_."

"What is it about then?" Seth asks, sounding sad and sorry and Dean can see the guy he used to be through the slits in his hard, porcelain exterior. And it's even fucking worse than knowing that part of him was dead forever.

"It's about — I can still hear your fucking heartbeat when I go to sleep. It's _there_. Ringing in my ears. Like fucking static. And even if I rip your heart out, it's not gonna go away. Because it's inside me now. You're inside me. And that's on _you_."

He lets the words settle into the silence around them, wrap around their bodies, sneak their way into their minds. It's almost a warm, familiar feeling.

Dean can't let Seth go, can't absolve him of his sins, any more than he can absolve himself. 

If Dean buries Seth somewhere deep below the earth, he knows that some part of himself would be going into the ground with him. 

"Guess we have to find a way to live with it," Seth says, his voice thin and taut, his words picked up by the wind and carried off into the desert night air.

Seth left before Dean could make a right mess of it, before he could fuck everything up, and maybe, maybe deep down he can't really blame him for that.

*

They're lying in Dean's bed together, clean clothes and clean skin, but Dean can still smell something on him that reminds him of ash and rot. Like maybe Dean's brain isn't the only wounded thing here. Seth has lots of needs and wants and maybe one day he'll get it all but it won't taste quite right. Because some piece of him has decayed into nothing.

Seth has lots of needs and wants but he's still here, in his bed, like maybe Dean is the only one that really matters. And maybe that's enough.

"What the hell are you doing here, Seth?" he finally asks into the narrow space between them.

"Making sure you're not dead," Seth says, like it's always been obvious.

"What would you do if I was dead?" Dean asks. And he's almost remembering the thud when Seth’s boot hit his skull, driving it through the unyielding concrete blocks, remembering the debris on his skin and in his hair, inhaling brick dust like all the oxygen was gone. Seth took it away. Seth had to try to kill him to stop him haunting him and maybe there's some comfort in that. 

"Write a eulogy," Seth says wryly. "Here lies Dean Ambrose. His head was hard as rocks.''

"Good thing too," Dean says, raising his fingers to his own temple, barely touching, more like hovering over his skin. 

"I think I've almost watched you die too many times to count," Seth tells him softly, eyes going wide and distant.

"And what were you thinking?"

Seth just looks across at him, the way he used to so many nights before, what feels like a lifetime ago now, just the two of them in the dark, and says, "That you looked peaceful. Like you were somewhere nicer. That maybe I wanted to go with you."

Seth looks at him not like he wants to be forgiven but like he just wants _Dean_. Like he knows, knows exactly who he is and what this is, that he can't kill it however many times he tries, that some shadow of him will always be lying in Dean's bed here with him. He knows, and they can't change anything now, it's already done, Seth's already gone, but it's still just _there_. In the space between them like the familiar blanket of night falling over the desert. And they will always run to each other like iron rocks colliding in the atmosphere, raining down to earth like a shower of sparks. 

*

Seth's making coffee when he goes downstairs the next morning.

He should look strange now, in broad daylight in his kitchen, the soft morning sunlight diffusing through the curtains and making a halo around his curls. But he looks like he belongs there.

Seth turns around and smiles at him like the first time he ever smiled at him, and it's surprising, like a jolt to the heart, like something sliding up his spine, but not something cold and sharp and painful — like warmth and comfort. Making his head feel lighter, like maybe something's healing. 

He goes to hand Dean a mug and then stops himself, rests it back on the countertop, and then pushes forwards, right into his space, and kisses him, like someone he used to know and like he's been washed anew at the same time, bitter but bright around the edges. It feels like digging up dead bodies, like who they used to be and who they never will be again. But he lets it happen. Maybe they're both always going to be surrounded by ghosts of people better than them.

Seth kisses him and he feels something unfurl inside of him, something that he's been carrying his whole life. Maybe he can do what he has to now, what he always had to do. He can't kill Seth, he's never gonna be able to put him underground where the sun can't find him anymore, but if he's lucky, maybe one day he can finally look at him and not feel like he's bleeding to death. 

*

They sit on the porch that evening, fingers wrapped around beer bottles dripping with condensation. Summer's ending soon, he knows, and nothing ever lasts forever. They have to go back some time. Seth wants what he wants and he can't stay here with him even if he is now. They can't be all that the other needs, they never will be, but maybe that doesn't matter. Dean can still hear Seth as clear as day in his head all the time and he can never quite run far enough. Seth may try to become unrecognisable but he can't ever do a good job of it, like he's not really committed. Dean always knows what lies beneath his skin.

"Would you have walked away?" Seth eventually asks, almost too quiet to hear. But Dean's always listening.

"No," Dean tells him honestly. "Not this time."

He hears Seth breathe out slowly, like he's accepting something too. Summer may be over but they're not, they never will be.

*

Seth leaves the next morning. Dean stands in the driveway and watches as he turns back to him for a split second, the handle of his banged-up case still in his grip. 

"Keep that briefcase close," is all Dean says to him with an edge of a daring smile on his lips. 

Seth gives him a nod that's barely there and gets in the car. Drives away, doesn't look back.

Seth's gonna be waiting for him wherever he goes and Dean's looking forward to when he's back on his feet again, when he can meet him there and it'll start all over again. Like an engine revving and ready to go in his chest. 

*

Later, he finds a torn scrap of paper tangled up in his sheets. One sentence scrawled in Seth's weird, loopy writing. 

It just says: _Here lies Dean Ambrose: he never stayed down for long._


End file.
